Finally Awake
by Queen Viserys
Summary: Sam adjusts to his life. Spoilers for Forever. "When Grace returns, I know she'll find me laughing to myself in any empty kitchen. And I know I'll kiss her before she asks any questions."


**I reread this trilogy recently and just wanted to write something for it. Initially this was intended to be proper closure for Sam and Grace, and then I realized I really didn't want that. So I tried to make this open, and a journey of Sam adjusting to life, filled with my head canons but hopefully leaving things open to interpretation a little, still. I hope I characterised him decently enough, though I often have difficultly with writing in character. (Also tenses are a thing I do not like)**

**Constructive criticism is appreciated. Hope you enjoy~!**

I am Sam Roth.

I'm a boy who was human, then a wolf, and now a human once again. I'm still not sure if I'm awake.

All I can hear is Grace's laugh. Human, loud, exploding around us. Awake.

We lay in the snow, an angel and a broken boy, two people who really should be wolves but cheated all the odds with half judged science and bloody syringes. I had told her I'd never made a snow angel, with all my stolen winters, and together we'd trudged into a forest clearing, heated by an assortment of mingled breath, coats, scarves and that awfully cute bobble hat on Grace's head. The hat alone is enough to ripple memories on the surface of my mind, but I leave them for now. I have several thousand of them, but now I didn't want to waste time recalling every one; my time is better suited for making new ones.

I'm not sure how long we've been lying in the snow for. I feel numb. Grace shivers beside me. Neither of us get up from the angel shells we've created.

Times like this flow into me, forcing me to re-identify my fingers, my toes, the human girl beside me. Through it all and I'm still waking up. A second winter without a wolf coat and the phantom of nausea still haunts me as the cold bites into my limbs.

Eventually we move back to the lodge. Without Cole, without his presence filling every room and every corridor, it feels oddly empty. I'd gotten used to music blasting loudly enough that the whole house seemed to shake, sending my cranes spiraling whilst fighting to escape the strings that bound them. They're all new ones, new memories for a new life.

Grace and I sit curled on the sofa, recounting memories that aren't locked on paper, hands locked together in an unbreakable bond. We kiss. I remember Beck's last request and I kiss her again. Still waking up to this, to her, every day.

The next day, Christmas, passes in a blur. It's all this: joy personified as words from a human girl as she unwraps and then holds a red coffee pot, and the weight of all the promises it carries, of a house to plug it into, of the years of use it will have, of many winters to wake up to smell of coffee; wrapping paper ripped into squares and given flight; kisses in the morning, by trees, on the sofa, in the snow; whispered words into each others' ears; comfortable silences broken only as we turn the pages of our respective books; phone calls to Mercy Falls, to California, to Norway; and huddled under blankets, night falling, listening to the sound of the wolves. Cole's timbre tone stands out above the rest.

As spring rolls around, we survived another winter. I'm still waking up. Then another year, and another, and another when college is over and the red coffee pot has it's new very own plug socket. Still waking up. Can I still be waking up?

I write songs in every chord, and make it my task to incorporate variations of 'hello' in as many songs as I can stand; I'm sick of goodbyes. With every day I can, I kiss Grace. It's never been so beautiful to be alive.

Our new house is populated with paper cranes, every single one living proof that I am indeed awake.

I sing Still Waking Up every day. In the shower, in my head, under my breath.

Then I ask Grace to marry me. She asks me what took me so long. Despite insisting that I still wanted to do everything right with her, looking at the perfection of a ring on her finger made me doubt myself for waiting all these years. But we'll have many more. I need to constantly remind myself of that.

On those occasional nights at the lodge, rarer with every year, I listen to the wolves and strain my ears to hear Beck. Then Grace tells me to sleep, so I do.

It takes our honeymoon for me to finally say it. Wrapped up together, a beating heart next to mine, too hot but undoubtedly human, "I'm awake," I say. Grace looks at me, seeming to understand the weight of it and presses closer to me to make our skin fold into one. Hands on my chest, she whispers "I know," and I can finally laugh and close my eyes. I think about numb scars, snapping chicken bones, a damaged white ghost wolf, cracked windshields, the organs of my true father. Then Grace in her wedding dress. I'm so awake.

I have had a thousand emotions and written a thousands songs about them.

Years fly by when you don't have a sell by date. I keep an eye on the two that helped us get here. Isabel gets her medicine degree, and Cole remains Cole- as forceful and deadly as an exploding star. They have their own agreement that doesn't require words, and Grace and I exchange smug looks when in the same room, earning icy daggers from Isabel.

We all stay in contact, though, ultimately. Perhaps not in constant harmony. We argue, fight, talk, survive. We live.

I sing my songs to a thousand people. I fold many thousands of birds. I kiss Grace a million times and plan to kiss her a million more.

Every year's the same; winter will always bring fear. Every year and we wake up with the spring time, having lasted another year.

It's exhilarating, being alive.

The next time we hear the wolves, I speak up. "Do you miss it?"

She looks up from her book. It's one of many. Bookshelves filled with Grace on every shelf back home. In the past she told me she would one day have her own personal library, and it's getting there. "I miss running with you." And that's that.

The next day, when Grace goes to work, I'm left in the lodge on my own. Wandering from room to room, I check there's enough firewood, enough stored food, and go through the regular maintenance checks for the approaching spring. I pause in the kitchen. Photos smile at me: the new pack, mixed with the old. I'd brought several old photos, but they were far outnumbered. Cole, a king in his new castle, Isabel, out of place yet so at home, a few older wolves who still shifted in warmer months, all in various places. And Grace. Me. We had made a point of taking photos every winter. They populate the walls and cupboard doors. So many winters.

A picture of Grace in the woods catches my attention. The sun is shining brightly, there.

I begin to sing My Summer Girl, because really, I can't help myself.

It's standing there, alone, after singing an old song that's weighted with the past, that I laugh. I laugh loud enough to fill the room, the house. I imagine it filling the woods and attracting the wolves. My summer girl. No longer my summer girl; she's my spring girl, she's my autumn girl, she's my winter girl. She's my forever girl.

My wife. My Grace.

Thousands of memories from winters in the cold fill me with enough warmth to burn out any trace of wolf quivering inside of me.

When Grace returns, I know she'll find me laughing to myself in any empty kitchen. And I know I'll kiss her before she asks any questions. And we'll go home, our home, with the wolves too far away to hear but in the past. Maybe I'll sing to her. Maybe I'll recite poetry. Maybe we'll just talk about her day at work. Maybe we'll remember those we have lost. Maybe we'll turn a new chapter of this life for many more winters to come. It's just important that we have the choice now.

I am Sam Roth.

I have never been so awake.


End file.
